Virat Kohli recalls how his late father refused to bribe cricket selector: He showed me the right way

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Virat Kohli's hour long chat with Indian football captain Sunil Chettri gave his fans an insight into his life. From cricket to their personal life, the skippers discussed everything under the sun. One such anecdote which the cricketer shared was from his teen days when he was training to be a cricketer and did not get a fair chance. Recalling how his late father set an example for him, Virat revealed that his father once refused to bribe a selector.

"In my home State (Delhi), sometimes things happen which are not fair. On one occasion, a certain someone did not play by the rules when it came to selection criteria. He told my father that while I had the merit to be selected, a little extra (possibly a bribe) was needed to confirm my selection," the Indian cricket captain said.

A post shared by Virat Kohli (@virat.kohli) on May 17, 2020 at 2:50am PDT

He added, "My father — an honest middle-class man who had worked hard all his life to become a successful lawyer — did not even understand what ‘little extra’ meant. My father simply said, ‘If you want to select Virat, then let it be purely on merit. I will give you nothing extra’. I did not get selected. I cried a lot. I was broken. But that incident taught me a lot. I realised that I had to be extraordinary to become successful and that I had to achieve this purely through my own effort and hard work. My father showed me the right way, through action and not merely words," Kohli said.